Flutterby™! From 1999-08-01 to 1999-08-18

I'm pretty much a "my kink is not your kink and I'm okay with that", but the recent exploits of Annabel Chong in setting the dubious record of having sex with 251 men on camera in a 10 hour period. Via CNN, a Turner Entertainment Report quotes her as saying ""What I hoped to accomplish firstly, was to explore my own personal sexuality, my boundaries, and I think I accomplished that. To see how far I could go off the beaten track of the passive female who likes to be romantically seduced." I'm not sure what it is about the whole thing that disturbs me like it does, and I haven't seen the documentary film, but it seems that she was pretty darned cavalier about the STD issues given that after 10 hours there's gotta be some damaged tissues, but more so that also that this "more faster" attitude seems to be a reflection of the worst part of American culture. If ever there was an activity that needed to emphasize the subjective elements of the experience and leave behind the numbers for their own sake attitudes, sex is it.

[ related topics: Quotes Interactive Drama Photography Erotic Sexual Culture ]

And in other news, Kiki is working on a flaming waterfall sculpture and, based on the experiments I've seen thus far, could have easily lit that grounded ship on fire.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Impeachment proceedings: Article 1 failed, 55 not guilty to 45 guilty CNN/ABC. Article 2 failed 50 to 50.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Jorn, poster of that essay about structural markup that I linked to a couple of paragraphs down, started this thread, my contribution is here.

[ related topics: Jorn Barger Dave Winer ]

http://www.whump.com/www/moreLikeThisXML.html Whump / More Like This - XML syndication format

[ related topics: Web development Content Management ]

So Mark just walked into my office and asked "If someone pleads not guilty, and the court finds them guilty, didn't they commit perjury?"

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Alright, I've given up on all pretense of privacy, if y'all are a part of Six Degrees and want to add Dan, go for it.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Privacy ]

Joe Thompson, who identifies himself as an Objectivist, takes to task the folks at http://www.moraldefense.com/ who call for a cessation of the anti-trust litigation against Microsoft.

The most common parallels they draw are those between Standard Oil and Microsoft, and between John Galt and Bill Gates. I wasn't able to find specific comments by Ayn Rand on the Standard Oil breakup, but I will in this essay attempt to draw parallels between Microsoft and Taggart Transcontinental under the ownership of Jim Taggart, and distinguish it from Rearden Steel.

[ related topics: Politics Objectivism Microsoft ]

Burning Man fix: http://www.templetons.com/brad/burn.html has a huge panorama that brings back much of the feeling of being there.

[ related topics: Burning Man Web development ]

Magitech, the "#1 Leader in Orgone Technology" presents the amazing life energy test:

1. Print the transfer diagram above.
2. Put the diagram on a table or any other surface. It should not be on your knee or in direct contact with any large living organism.
3. Now hold the center of the palm of any of your hands approximately one inch (3 cm) above the printout of the diagram.

You may be surprised to feel something almost immediately: either a slight tingling in your hand, a gentle cool breeze, or, as is the case with most people, an agreeable sensation of warmth in the center of your palm that may spread out from the palm.

Warning, don't print out the diagram at 72DPI or you'll open a vortex to the nether regions of an alternate dimension and have your soul devoured by slobbering demons. Along those lines, AquaClara "is bottled with 800% more pure oxygen than ordinary water." Ummm... H₂O, right? How do you fit 8x more O into that? Wonder what happens if you try to put out a fire with it...

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Web development ]

via /., Computerworld reports that Burlington Coat Factory is switching to Linux:

Over the next 12 to 18 months, Burlington will install Linux on 1,150 computers in its 250 stores, Prince said. "Linux has come along so strongly, and the price of Intel PCs has dropped so much . . . [that it] is attractive from both a price and performance standpoint. It's free, and it runs like the wind."

[ related topics: Free Software ]

In Salon, another LA person complains about how boring LA people are. You don't have to go read the article, there's really nothing there, it's just another example of how with postmodern attitudes everything quickly reduces to self-parody.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Via Scripting News comes irrefutable proof that Tinky Winky is not gay

[ related topics: Sexual Culture Dave Winer ]

Aaaaargh! Well, Cameron works for the online division, so this I can't direct this at him, but... Why would the Borders in San Rafael tell us that they carry a (weekly) magazine and to call back regularly to see when they had it in, when they don't? And we called back for a week and a half before someone finally said "Oh, that's crossed off on the list, so we must not get it anymore". Luckily Book Passage, our local independent, still had that edition. Now if they'd had a better magazine selection in the first place we would have thought of them first when we were trying to track it down. Oh well.

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Interactive Drama Books ]

Many of us looked to Purple Moon as a pioneer, breaking out of the young male computer game market. We had some questions as to their methods, the game I played with, Rockett's Tricky Decision, was a hideous rehash of the worst elementary school girl stereotyping, but it should have at least sold. Well, the Mercury News reports that Purple Moon is no more. The market grew to $85 million, but Mattel owns most of that.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Games ]

Old story, but it doesn't mind a recycling: Remote controlled cockroaches in Tokyo.

[ related topics: Web development ]

TIME reports that women are suing Alabama over that state's ban on vibrators.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Forwarded book recommendation of the day: The Slang of Sin by Tom Dalzell. I'll have to check it out.

[ related topics: Books ]

Columbine writes about the need to do more than survive and the malaise that grips Eastern Europe, in Alewife Bayou.

[ related topics: Politics ]

There's a rant boiling up about demographics, privacy and marketing. But here's a resource: http://www.antitelemarketer.com/

[ related topics: Privacy ]

So while I was sick I finished reading Tad Williams' Otherland: City of Golden Shadow which I started on the recommendation of Cameron. Full review coming in a bit, it's the first in a series and seems to be heading towards a couple of the VR clichés, but it did get me back into the mode of thinking about immersive environments again. Two things leaped out at me: I think I went to high school with the cover artist; and there was a comment in there about how at the beginning of this century packaged foods were coming in and were primarily a domain of the rich, and how at the end of this century the rich are the ones with the best access to fresh food and it's the poor who eat the packaged food. I think the same parallel can be drawn to television. Something to consider next time you hear calls for more computers in the schools.

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Children and growing up Technology and Culture ]

Whoopsie! AP reports that in Parkside Pennsylvania the police aren't smart enough to cover their tracks when browsing child porn on the department's computer. It's long been asserted that the vast majority of child pornography traffic is via law enforcement, although most people assume that that's because they're using it for sting attempts. Apparently that isn't the case in this situation.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Via /., the site I've been waiting for. http://www.textfiles.com/ has all sorts of text files from the BBS world of the '80s! Remember Krakowicz? Total flashback city, I'm remembering acoustic couplers, the TI Silent 700 and running the thermal paper through it 4 different ways (80 column paper, 40 column BBSs). Anyone out there remember the Ghost Ship East or Stormbringer ][ or any of the southwestern Connecticut scene?

[ related topics: Apple Computer Nostalgia ]

Swatch has announced that it will ship a wristwatch telephone before the end of this year.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Cameron points out that http://www.textfiles.com/ is quite similar to http://www.etext.org/Zines/ASCII/

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett ]

Well, having been completely taken to task over my link to Joe Thompson's critique of the Moral Defense defense of Microsoft, here's his follow-up talking about how the free software movement fits in. No use of the "O" word here...

[ related topics: Free Software Web development Microsoft ]

Hungry Mind Review has an interesting review of Leonard Shlain's The Alphabet Vs. the Goddess, Neal Gabler's Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality, and Mitchell Stephens' The Rise of the Image the Fall of teh Word. I'm more and more conscious that language helps define how we think and how we problem solve. It provides us with the tools for symbolic manipulation that let us formalize what we'd otherwise have to depend on hunches for. I find it more than a little disturbing that we're losing much of that in our quest for less symbolic entertainment.

Via Robot Wisdom (although his spin was different), an article in Nando times reports that a Danish study in the New England Journal of Medicine links schizophrenia to being born in cities or during late winter.

[ related topics: Jorn Barger Web development Weblogs ]

Oh my. The National Game Review, "As Accurate as Al Sharpton", presents computer Gaming's Hottest Guys Pin-up Calendar, if you're into that sort of thing. I'm not. Not just "no, thanks" not, I mean "the very thought makes me quake in fear" not. No offense meant, guys.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Web development Games ]

I've got a long rant coming on the stasis of Chattanooga, but I'm not completely sure where it's going yet. This week is going to be total heck, I've got a bunch of fixes and tweaks to have ready by SIGGRAPH. One of the things that's nice about Burning Man is that there's a sense of enforced idleness, I hope that I can get enough of my prep work done that I feel that again, because this vacation felt hectic at times. But it was fun. Shock of the morning: Coming home to 700 new messages. Choke.

[ related topics: Burning Man ]

Via Camworld some cool notes on interactive fiction as a guilde to writing hyperfiction.

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Interactive Drama Web development ]

Mike's Electric Stuff covers tesla coils, high frequency valves, and all sorts of other cool stuff.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Regarding my color complaints, Wes Felter points out that Mozilla has color sync code.

The ASCII table from hell, including Morse code.

[ related topics: Web development ]

How the octothorpe ("#") got that name

How long can a human survive vacuum?

The subject later reported that he could feel and hear the air leaking out, and his last concious memory was of the water on his tongue beginning to boil.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Terrence Masson's CGI 101, a dictionary and history of computer graphics and imaging, looks pretty cool. New Riders is the publisher.

Cool stuff from the show floor: Stratasys has a 3d object "printer" that works in cheaper plastics, but they've also got one that works with ABS, so you can print to objects that you can actually work with later. Starting from $50k.

Due to some oddnesses in order of how the glossary gets filled in, the 3D Nature URL isn't filled in below. It's http://www.3dnature.com/ And the 3D Nature folks are not only cool, they've got a neat project. Highly recommended if you're working with geography datasets, at least from the stuff I saw here.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

From the URL you might think it's a swinger's site, but http://www.sex4couples.com/ is more of a Yahoo style index of articles on the web that might be interesting to couples looking at spicing up their relationship. Links to sex information all across the web, pretty comprehensive.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Debra Hyde keeps a diary which is one of the few pieces of DS/SM/NLOP writing that makes me understand why someone would be interested in that lifestyle. Well, now she's got the DebWeb LogJam, a web log covering sex. She claims she's going to leave the fringes to me, but she's way further out there than I am.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Weblogs ]

Three chapters of Alan Turing's treatise on the Enigma, retyped from the only known paper copy, are now available with the rest to come soon.

[ related topics: Web development ]

What more can be said about The Simpsons Archive?

Tired of SETI's bungles? The Search for Terrestrial Intelligence strives to answer the question: "will the inhabitants of Earth read a webpage, no matter how silly?"

http://www.sendaturd.com/

Is there someone in your life who deserves some "special" sentiments from you? Would sending them flowers or some other gift not do the trick? At SendaTurd.com we will help you share your feelings for that special person by sending them REAL feces. That's right! We don't send any fake plastic or rubber stuff but instead real feces from your choice of animals...

Apropos to various discussions recently about user interface, and the discussion last night with Cameron about information design, from the ATSR manual comes the Nietzsche Guide to Tech Support:

"Our product is obviously too complex and advanced for you. Please desist from using it - you are soiling it. Nevertheless, there may come a time when you actually must help the user, even though he is sucking away your magnificent intellectual vitality with his grotesque shambling confusion."

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett Web development User Interface ]

American maize mazes: http://www.maizemaze.com/ http://www.americanmaze.com/ In England, alas: Mazes made of maize. http://www.mazemaker.com/

Dang it, for some reason this URL is too long for Netscape (Works from a command line, though): http://twas.brillig.and.the.sl....raths.outgrabe.jabberwocky.com/

Interested in implementing small devices with embedded TCP/IP? The Seiko S7600 iChip supports TCP and UPD, PPP+PAP, is easily hooked to a small microcontroller, and costs about $10 in ones and twos.

Also via the Daily Illuminator comes Find A Grave. So looked for the pilgrimage I've been wanting to make recently, and sure enough here's the grave of Emperor Norton, Emperor of The United States and Protector of Mexico, down in Colma just south of San Francisco.

[ related topics: Web development ]

In my search for Emperor Norton stuff I ran across http://www.notfrisco.com/ a wonderful resource for various histories of San Francisco.

[ related topics: Web development ]

When I moved out of my parent's home ages ago, they bought me a chef's knife. A good forged blade. And over the many years I've gotten pretty darned good with it, except for pesto and grated cheese, in the quantities I cook there's nothing the food processor can do that I can't do as fast with the knife (when you include clean-up times, especially). But I've been sharpening it with this old steel, that I snitched from my parents about the same time. Recently when I was in Atlanta doing "guy stuff" with my dad (building cabinets in the basement, with side trips to some absolutely awesome hardware stores), he raved about the Diamond Whetstone Sharpener. I bought an 8" coarse one yesterday. Wow. That knife is downright frightening now. I think I'm going to have to get a fine one just go take the burrs off the edge, but these things are way cool, and they use water rather than oil for lubrication.

Via NTK, a game proposal for Atlas Shrugged Interactive. Unfortunately, basing your pitch for bucks on the success of Myst is liable to get you laughed out of any office of someone who knows the business, but the thought has promise.

[ related topics: Objectivism Web development Games ]

At first the Useless Use of Cat Award sounds like more snide Unix gurus, but there's lots of really good stuff if you ever have to do shell scripting.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Web development ]

Remember kiddies, steal a Word document from someone else so the machine IDs aren't traceable to you if you're going to cut and paste the source to the Melissa virus into it.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Microsoft ]

I thought I'd sent this from somewhere, but apparently not. Note on the men's room wall of The Stone Lion, Chattanooga's premier dive bar:

I wish I was a Columbine High School student so that my opinion mattered.

[ related topics: Children and growing up ]

Regarding privacy concerns, as prominent an organization as SIGGRAPH has screwed up and released attendee information despite a very clear effort by me and my coworkers to click all the appropriate "don't release our information" boxes. The official excuse being given is that some humans processing information misunderstood the wording, but there's nothing in the process of copying a database to external vendors that wouldn't be automated.

[ related topics: Privacy ]

A new NETFUTURE is out, in a departure it includes a piece from a 19 year old Argentinian who's glad that the net is corroding his culture:

How could I swap a culture that cheers intelligence, curiosity, talent, debate, humour and weirdness for a culture that enforces traditionalism, blatant media manipulation, economical profit by cheating and plain non-thinking?

And a response by a woman who grew up in India, who starts with a compelling argument but loses it about mid-way through.

[ related topics: Humor Web development Technology and Culture ]

A new Net Future is up:

I've wanted to put this Special Issue together for a long time, but never felt up to the task. My desire was to begin sharing with you some of the germinal convictions from which nearly all my commentary in NETFUTURE has arisen.

[ related topics: Web development Technology and Culture ]

Cool warning message of the day on the documentation for some some electronics components I just got. Here at work we're wondering what "near" means:

CAUTION: Board puts out 1000VAC at 200KHz. It can cause severe R.F. burns. Use extreme caution and do not get near the board while voltage is applied. If you must work on or near the board, disconnect the input voltage!!!!!

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Some tips for common portrait photography situations, ways to diminish or enhance various facial features, suggestions for posing individuals and groups, a few common lighting notes.

[ related topics: Web development Photography ]

Via Scripting News comes this article demonstrating massive ignorance on the part of Washington DC's mayor. Please, if there's anyone who's gotten to adulthood without a working definition of the word "niggardly", can you just take steps to remove yourself from the gene pool now? Thank you.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Dave Winer ]

On that "somewhat depressed and disinterested" topic... I spent a week moping, and seem to be back on form. I've got a couple of projects under way, and since I asked for help on one forum and got a whole bunch of cool stuff in return, maybe y'all can help out. The three that I can talk about:

First is the simple one. I'm building a couple of special-purpose timers to let us be far away when the liquid propane powered bottle rocket ascends. I've got a bit of code written and the interface electronics figured out (a couple of 2N2222s and diodes driving relays which then trigger the valves) to do this with the Atmel AVR1200 embedded microcontroller, but I need to interface a display. I could hack together an LED display, but http://eio.com/ has backlit LCD displays for less than the LEDs alone would cost me. Anyone out there played with such things and can give me guidance?

Second, I'm collecting parts for a tandem side-by-side tricycle to be used as a base for some kinetic sculpture. Old bikes in the SF Bay area that you'll let go cheap? Experience with brazing that you're willing to pass on?

Third, I'm building a large environmental sculpture for Burning Man, sort of a "garden of eden" theme. If you're into the non-flammable side of the event, or would like to be, or are interested in sharing a truck to get all this stuff up there in August, drop the webmaster a line.

[ related topics: Burning Man Hardware Hackery Interactive Drama ]

Via Mary Anne's Diary the new issue of Scarlet Letters. I mentioned before that the themes there don't always click with me, this issue is "bisexuality and polyamory". I've been in a very vanilla mood recently (actually, somewhat depressed and disinterested), so we'll see if any of it works. Relatedly, Mary Anne also says that Best American Erotica 1999 is out, time to catch Susie Bright on the reading tour.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Web development Erotic Sexual Culture ]

An article in Feed about the completion of Babbage's second Difference Engine. In the "how do our personal biases affect interpretation" department, it came across as the tragedy of centrally planned science.

QOTD:

Let's face it, no-one gets sexually aroused when installing NT, despite the amount of exclamations involving intercourse that are emitted.

-- Chris "Saundo" Saunderson

[ related topics: Quotes Microsoft ]

In keeping with tradition, Catherine and I did absolutely nothing football related this weekend. We went where the football crowd would be least evident: art galleries. Although why we did that on this special weekend when so many other normally overrun areas are free from the drooling cretins is a mystery, but bygones are bygones. Thankfully we have other people to watch the commercials for us. In Advertising Age, Bob Garfield reviews the Super Bowl commercials. I'm told that the Apple add sucked. Garfield disagrees, but the first half is well worth reading:

When all the empties are collected, and all the street rioting is over and when the Fox pregame coverage finally ends, what will be starkly apparent is that the real Super Bowl loser was the American woman.

In a rout.

Having finished the articles with its synopses, I now feel strangely compelled to go wash my hands. And, funny, I don't feel like I missed a thing.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Web development Dan's Life ]

Yay! The Child Online Protection Act (COPA) has been blocked. Not that I've got anything against protecting children, but, like most laws it's got nothing to do with its title.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Politics ]

106th CONGRESS 1st Session H. J. RES. 14, Designating Monday, January 3, 2000, as the day for the observance of the New Year's Day holiday in that year.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That, in order to provide the public and technology professionals with an additional day, prior to the start of the workweek, to begin repairs on failed computer systems caused by the Year 2000 computer problem, the New Year's Day holiday in the year 2000 shall be deemed to occur on January 3, 2000 (rather than the date that would otherwise apply under section 6103(a) of title 5, United States Code).

[ related topics: Politics ]

What's a Cool Site of the Year award worth? According to Salon's tech log about $93, if you're not there to pick it up.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Web development ]

Ouch: Sierra recalled 50,000 copies of NFL Football pro '99. The Washington post quotes President David Grenewetski: "I want to apologize to all our loyal customers for releasing a product before it was ready." This is not business as usual, and I'm shocked, amazed and impressed.

[ related topics: Quotes Web development ]

Revoltin' bovines: It's Cows! With Guns!. I've ordered the CD.

[ related topics: Music ]

Okay, so I was reading a (lame) article in Salon and noticed that the author had used "jibe" to mean "in accord with". Pissed off at the misuse of the word, I went for my Houghton Mifflin American Heritage Dictionary, and find that, along with "taunt" and the sailing usage, they list "in accord with" as a definition of unknown origins. I'll tell you exactly where it came from: People who can't pronounce "jive". Sheesh. If I had one wish for the world, it would be for literate editors.

[ related topics: Language Interactive Drama Web development ]

CNN reports on New York's Fashion Institute of Technology's exhibit on how we eroticize footwear. Unfortunately, their JavaScripted virtual tour seems to be busted, but that's okay 'cause heels don't do much for me anyway. Now a pair of Birkenstocks on bare feet, however...

Networking nerds tired of that OSI Seven Layer model thingie that's quoted everywhere but has no bearing on reality and actually encourages bad design because hard separations between layers like they encourage is inefficient? http://www.europa.com/~dogman/osi/

To its credit, we have found that there are indeed a few things in this world that actually follow the seven layer model; but none of them have anything relevant to do with today's high tech world. Case in point; the Taco Bell Seven Layer Burrito.

A letter to Salon from Tim Fogle elaborates on America's fascination with Monica:

Busty, bottomy women never fell out of favor anywhere but on a few blocks in Manhattan, Paris and Hollywood, but it took a thong, a president with an eye for some hips and a little pole smoking to wake us up from our media-induced Equal coma.

[ related topics: Web development ]

I meant "SGML" rather than "HTML" in those comments about patents below, but really even in the HTML 1.0 spec it said that HTML was a markup language, not a display language. Despite my support of intellectual property in general, I've long been a critic of patents, specifically how patents are implemented under U.S. law. In anothing shining example of the failure of the patent system, Microsoft has patented style sheets, something I thought were inherent in the concept of HTML. Specifically:

"Unlike previous systems, the display regions in this system do not contain any text at the time the style sheet is applied. Rather, the text, or other media such as graphics, is poured into the display region when the title is rendered on the customer's computer."

Ummm... Framemaker's been around for how long? Yeesh. And now it becomes "who has deeper pockets for the lawyers".

[ related topics: Intellectual Property Web development Microsoft ]

In the "your father was a lawyer" department, BBC news reports that Japanese scientists at Tottori University have rats and mice producing human sperm.

My goof: The NBMA link below is wrong, it should be http://www.nbma.com/ Similarly, there's a new mailing list for Marin job seekers, primarily a bunch of recent College of Marin grads, but open to anyone looking for opportunity in Marin or the north bay, kinda sorta affiliated with the NBMA. "subscribe marinjobseekers", as above.

And I promise that this weekend we'll kick of idrama, we've had probably 15 new subscribers and no traffic yet. If you're not already subscribed and are interested in interactive story telling and interactive drama, send a message to majordomo@flutterby.com with "subscribe idrama" in the body of the messages.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Games ]

Susie Bright offers survival tips for singles on Valentine's Day in Salon.

[ related topics: Web development Sexual Culture ]

In Nerve, Laura Resnick writes about The Purple Rose of Romance. Unfortunately, while she makes a good point about porn, I think it goes on a little long and I don't think she really does get to the essence of romance.

HEROINE: I was expressing uncontrollable passion.

EDITOR: Actually, I think you were expressing mundane lust.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

I have seen the future, and it is Rykodisk, selling MP3s on http://www.goodnoise.com/ for $.99/song. Maybe it really is time to build a couple of embedded MP3 players to plug into the house network. I wonder how much a high speed low distance Ethernet to radio system would cost so that I can park the car and have the songs I want for the commute automagically downloaded.

[ related topics: Web development Music ]

Not that I'm one to defend the stock prices of Amazon, but those who think of Amazon as an online bookstore are going to be surprised, and I think Barnes and Noble and Borders and the other online bookstores need to take something into account when they're looking at Amazon as competition: The right model on which to evaluate Amazon is as the next WalMart.

[ related topics: Books ]

I... uh... can't talk about why this is specifically interesting to me, but the inherent coolness factor should be obvious to you computer gaming and graphics junkies, here's an article about Square's studio in Honolulu and the making of Final Fantasy: The Movie including this one rendering of a human. Sometime in 2001 we'll watch Toy Story again and be completely shocked at how primitive it looks.

[ related topics: Pixar Web development Games Animation ]

Crypt Newsletter has a background of "cyberterror" misinformation as perpetrated by assorted government agencies, culminating in President Clinton's recent remarks.

[ related topics: Politics Privacy ]

Columbine writes about talking to the Pixies in Alewife Bayou. What will decide how well we use computers isn't how many facts we can memorize about using Microsoft Word, but rather how well we talk to all of the little micro-apps which will do all our searching and organizing and such.

"You're going to end up learning the language of the pixies whether you like it or not. Do you use a search engine a lot? Several of them? D'you notice how they each like to be slapped and tickled a slightly different way? Are you beginning to get the hang of knowing the correct incantation to get what you want?"

[ related topics: Microsoft ]

Jakob Nielsen on Why People Shop on the Web. Price wasn't the most important, and it's not sufficient to have just product listings, people are looking for information. If, anywhere on your web pages, you resort to sending people paper catalogs, you're definitely not getting it.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Web development User Interface ]

http://www.hampsterdance.com/ ... I'm told that the music adds more to it, but just the image of 400 animated GIFs is kind of disturbing.

[ related topics: Web development Music Animation ]

Via The Daily Illuminator comes this note for all you festive apocalypse type people: The AP reports that Israel's National Parks Authority has contracted "to build a submerged bridge into the Sea of Galilee that would allow tourists to simulate Jesus' miraculous walk on water." Luckily, should the savior show up you will be able to rely on simple pushing and shoving to separate the posers from the real thing: "It will not be railed in order to enhance the "walking on water" effect, and lifeguards and boats will be in attendance in case a walker slips off."

[ related topics: Religion Humor ]

David Steinberg's new column is out, titled "THE SIXTIES AND THE EROTICIZATION OF EVERYDAY LIFE"

[ related topics: Web development Sexual Culture ]

Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.

Clean Sheets is up, although only Are you a good girl or a bad girl leaped out at me from the title page.

[ related topics: Humor Web development Erotic ]

According to the AP, Jerry Falwell is outing Teletubby Tinky Winky, apparently on the basis of the purple suit, magic bag as a purse, and a triangle on his costume. Hmmm... I wonder what sort of assumptions we can make about bigoted preachers in green sport coats?

QOTD:

Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with your Microsoft product.

-Ferenc Mantfeld

[ related topics: Quotes Microsoft ]

Linux for the Nintendo 64. Find a way to make a living via the platform and with the philosophy, 'cause it'll be more pervasive than you can possibly imagine.

[ related topics: Free Software ]

Just in case you have been living in a cave for most of your life and didn't realize that the Olympics are much more a political event than one celebrating any actual accomplishments or skills (the boycott of the last winter games by all the good snowboarders and subsequent lack of media coverage of same was interesting), may I present the Report to the Board of Trustees from the Board Of Ethics Of The Salt Lake Organizing Committee For The Olympic Winter Games of 2002.

[ related topics: Politics Web development Games ]

QOTD: I think I'm losing the ability to properly appreciate parody, because all the parodies are so *MUNDANE* compared to the shit that really happens.

- Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes

[ related topics: Quotes ]

Anonymous quote of the day regarding the Microsoft anti-trust trial:

It's so characteristic of them to not prepare their case meticulously, but rather ship first and try to debug in the field...

[ related topics: Quotes Microsoft ]

More silly Latin. Anyone want to letter this one up in diploma form? I could use something official looking:

Hic confirmat [your name here] habentem litteras commendaticias verbis latinis ad murum suum.

According to USA Today, Steve Jobs is worth all 100 pennies that Apple is paying him for being CEO of Apple, and a total bargain for Pixar, which is getting his services for free.

[ related topics: Pixar Apple Computer Animation ]

Via /., _Excite reports (http://www.excite.com/computer...ticle=/news/19990210/2206436.inp) (not that there's likely to be any conflict of interest here) that Yahoo will move sites submitted for review to the front of the line for $199. So, I guess this means that we can start using Yahoo as a filter for the things to ignore, huh? Coupled with the Amazon revelations of earlier this week and the "free PC" hoopla, it's another reminder that you should always be thinking about what the real revenue stream and business model of the entities you're dealing with is.

[ related topics: Books ]

In Nerve, Joana Cagan explores the bodice-ripper part of the romance genre from the perspective of an editor looking back. Touched on a lot of the things that disturb me about romance and about being in the entertainment industry in general. Good reading:

I'm increasingly convinced that romances are so popular because they work not so much as sexual fantasies, but rather as potent cultural ones.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

http://my.netscape.com/ has some undocumented (well, okay, not very publicly documented) private channels.

[ related topics: Web development Content Management ]

Sean Kennedy points out that the Television Season Premiers I posted a few days back is similar to, but not exactly like, this piece in the onion.

[ related topics: Web development Technology and Culture ]

No guarantees this is truly the original attribution, but it's one of the better written versions of the old gag:

California, n.:

From Latin "calor", meaning "heat" (as in English "calorie" or Spanish "caliente"); and "fornia'" for "sexual intercourse" or "fornication." Hence: Tierra de California, "the land of hot sex."

-- Ed Moran

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

I've got a column to write, a friend to help move, Valentine's day to celebrate, and a large project to move out of the living room, but I want to expand Newwwsboy to give me a search engine and at least one XML based representation of my pages, probably using Dave Winer's DTD for compatibility, and possibly something that comes closer to expressing the information I care about. Anyone got suggestions or standards for this? How about an expansion that allows some sort of "choose what you want to see" and third party submissions?

[ related topics: Web development Content Management Dave Winer ]

I didn't see this one when Dave Winer apparently linked to it, but Jorn Barger, in his The Mythos of Structural Markup, think's I'm a member of "a 'ciwah cult' that's guilty of extreme intellectual pride, derived from a (very limited) mastery of the idea of structural markup." I love the "for the same reasons that they're afraid of trying to display personal style in dress or decor, etc". How's your glitter nail polish, Jorn?

[ related topics: Jorn Barger Web development Dave Winer ]

Also via /., a Valentine's day ode to Unix:

I know what you're thinking: this metaphor -- this author -- is deranged. Anyone with a need for this kind of intimacy with a virtual machine could use some serious psychiatric attention.

[ related topics: Web development ]

From Rebecca's Pocket a warning from pediatricians against TV for young children.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Technology and Culture ]

Drugs Are Really Excellent: D.A.R.E. is moving towards acheiving its goals! Latest studies show that D.A.R.E. has no effect on drug use, this is an improvement over previous studies which showed that D.A.R.E. graduates tended to have higher drug use rates than those who hadn't had the program in their schools. Only users lose drugs.

[ related topics: Drugs Children and growing up ]

So I went to that Time poll below and poked around to some of their other polls. How bloody vapid. John Aldrich passes along this note:

Subject: Time's Person of the Century poll

Linus Torvalds is ahead of Bill Gates -- barely. Please do your part! :-) http://cgi.pathfinder.com/time/time100/poc/century.html

[ related topics: Free Software Web development ]

Be afraid: FBI trying to stop satellite phones because they're hard to tap:

Federal communications officials are holding up critical operating licenses for Globalstar and a handful of smaller satellite phone services while they negotiate with the FBI over wiretapping issues.

[ related topics: Business Web development ]

I want one: Jar Jar candy with 10" push-up tongue.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Keith Knight on yuppie sushi eaters

[ related topics: Humor Web development ]

The Daily Illuminator reminded me that I'd missed _The results of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Wendy Lawton's entry that won the children's prize:

"The greedy schoolbus crept through the streets devouring clumps of children until its belly groaned with surfeit, then lumbered back to the schoolhouse where it obligingly regurgitated its meal onto the grounds."

[ related topics: Children and growing up Web development Books ]

Via /. comes the great Hart Scientific's unofficial Y2K compliance statement:

Even if our accounting software stops working on January 3, 2000, you can count on us finding a way to bill you for whatever you bought from us prior to Armageddon. Even if we have to write your invoice on the back of bubble gum wrappers, we're going to bill you.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Quote of the day comes from Microsoft's NT 3.5x and 4.0 TCP/IP documentation:

"CAUTION: The Windows NT TCP/IP implementation is largely self tuning. Adjusting registry parameters without careful study may adversely affect system performance."

Yeah, "adversely" apparently means it might actually work! Right now I'm trying to figure out why it insists on recycling an open socket after the time specified by the obscure TcpTimedWaitDelay registry entry. What does NT require me to tweak that every other socket implementation in the universe doesn't? Sigh...

[ related topics: Quotes Microsoft ]

Reiterating my concerns yesterday about eye development to chlidren subjected to virtual realities including television, the American Academy of Pediatrics has issued a press release discouraging television for very young children, the policy itself concentrates more on the emotional and psychological effects than the physical ones.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Web development Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Technology and Culture ]

Hey! I found another use for virtual desktops! I've got a whole screen devoted to those stupid little pop-up ads from GeoCities and AngelFire. With all those little windows down there they don't pop up anywhere else to bug me. X windows rocks!

[ related topics: Microsoft ]

QOTD from a Rolling Stone article about porn stars and rockers via DebWeb LogJam:

"The idea of life is a simple one, either you're going to enjoy it or you're not. Life is better with porn stars. It's as simple as that."

--- Gene Simmons of Kiss

[ related topics: Quotes Erotic Sexual Culture Weblogs ]

Sorry to my less technical readers, but this sucks and I need help. I've got a Windows NT application that converses with a server. During low traffic situations everything's fine, but when I'm sending a lot of data from the client to the server the select() call is taking a minimum of 200 ms. That's 1/5th of a second. In the particular case that this is happening that means that the NT version of this code runs orders of magnitude slower than the Unix version, all because of the client, not the compute bound server. I've tried everything I can think of to disable the Nagle queueing, and I can't find any other timeouts that should be pertinent. Anyone out there who knows how to fix this send e-mail to me at danlyke at pixar.com, please!

[ related topics: Pixar Animation Microsoft ]

Okay, I'm feeling a bit better this morning. I don't yet know if the Dan, Leo, Phil & Sam party had any arrests, but it did have nudity and lots of good conversation. Admittedly, I was a wimp and didn't get naked, my excuse is that the security guard seemed to be paying an undue amount of attention to the hot tub about the time I was going to move that direction, so transit in and out seemed risky. And that was at quarter to two, I don't know what time the bar closed but I didn't want to have to hang out there forever.

If you got a ticket, save it. It should be the beginning of a tradition. I knew SIGGRAPH had truly started when the most conversation I could get walking to the conference center from the hotel this morning was a hung-over grunt. But I did get a solid 4 hours of sleep last night. And I had a hell of a time removing the "void" stamp from my forehead. URLs of note: Jean-Pierre Hébert has a cool piece in one of the art galleries, a table of sand through which moves a steel ball that traces out cool patterns.

I played a bit with Virtual Technologies force feedback glove. For $40k it seemed a bit steep, I wanted a little more resolution in the touch, but that may have been because it was only my hand that was interacting with the environment, not my hand position (weird to feel pressure on the fingers without having the arm blocked). But it was a fun toy. And I played with their sensor glove alone (more like about $10k) in another exhibit with a stereo display, and that was actually quite cool (using my hand as a 3d paintbrush), so there are possibilities here.

Other cool idea was the sketch based 3d modeler. It was a bit crude, and the interface didn't end up being nearly as intuitive as I thought it was going to be, but the idea has merit. Draw a shape, it gets roughly translated to a 3d object (given some rounded thickness). Draw another figure on that first shape and it's a shape for extrusion, you can then rotate and draw another guesture to do the extrusion. Draw a cut from that shape and you get an indentation. I think it's available from http://www.alice.org/

Nothing much on tap for today, I think there was one paper that interested me, and I want to go find some of the people I talked with last night (For instance, Terrence Masson's doing a book signing, his new book is a dictionary of CG terms), and investigating the party options for this evening.

That sound session yesterday was largely on ways to parametrically synthesize sounds, and to calculate issues like reflections and such. Cool discussion. I got hauled out at the end to go to the show floor and try to figure out a problem with NT. Looks like I'm just going to have to rewrite that entire system to blow off the sockets layer and use a more complex threading and native API approach. C'mon, Microsoft, networking doesn't have to be that complicated.

If you're in LA, party tonight at the Figueroa, 10 to midnight. Find me and I'll buy you a drink.

And I must be getting old, I'm much more interested in conversation than hanging out with the sweet young design school students. Not that there are terribly many of them, the male to female ratio here is extremely high. As you'd expect.

The show floor opens today, we'll see what looks cool there. Question on one of the walls: "Will fashion be futuristic or retro?" Fashion hasn't been futuristic since we first donned animal skins to keep ourselves warm. After that it's all been a homage to something.

The talk I wanted to get to yesterday evening was cancelled because of legal wrangling and intellectual property issues. This morning I'm trying a talk on "Virtual Worlds / Real Sounds", which I hope is going to cover a lot of stuff about synthesizing audio in a 3d environment, the algorithms used to do placement of sounds. I played with QSound (link is off the top of my head, I hope it works) back when we were developing the RAPIX 3d application framework, and was pretty impressed by the kinds of positioning that our aural system is set up to do (and how the QSound guys used that). Hopefully this will cover some of the nuts and bolts of how to do that.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Microsoft Graphics ]

Don't remember if I mentioned this before, but I'll be at SIGGRAPH 99 next week. I'll be hosting a party at the Figueroa bar 10-12 on Tuesday, find me, mention Flutterby, and I'll buy you a drink; and personing at the Pixar booth on Thursday. In watching the Pixar booth, my answers will be (in this order):

• No, you can't have my shirt
• No, I don't have any spares behind the counter, and I'm not just holding out on you, and even if I did I wouldn't give one to a whiner
• Pixar isn't hiring right now, but we're always interested in superstars, demo tapes with flying logos need not apply
• check the web page for school suggestions
• no plans for a MacOS version, but send us an invoice for 500 copies and we'll port it to anything you want
• Intel Linux is shipping
• Alpha Linux is waiting on us getting some more stable installations, the Alpha Unix (flavor of the month) version will run under Linux, but license issues concerning DEC's libraries are a concern
• NT is in beta waiting for people to feel comfortable with copy protection problems
• Have you looked at Blue Moon Rendering Tools?
• Talk to Lola about terms, she's right over there

[ related topics: Pixar Free Software Children and growing up Interactive Drama Animation Microsoft ]

Microsoft ploy for free testing backfires as machine they wanted to be hacked crashed of its own accord soon after going online.

[ related topics: Web development Microsoft ]

An interview with the creator of The Iron Giant, which from the buzz sounds like the must-see movie of the summer.

[ related topics: Web development ]

I had a couple of really brilliant things I was going to say here, but I didn't drag my laptop with me today and in my sleep deprived haze I forgot them all. A cool session on invisible user interfaces yesterday. Well, not invisible, but that we've got so many good user interfaces that have been honed and refined over the centuries we may as well stick to the ones we've got rather than creating new ones. Some of this is going to involve new interface hardware which lets us get away from the mouse/screen/keyboard design, those of you who've heard my rant on how much information is wasted on my alarm clock radio can probably guess where this is going. I think I'm gonna go back to the bay area tomorrow, it'll be good to be home. I've got some ideas and renewed enthusiasm for my Burning Man piece, I'll be hitting the hardware stores lots this week. Anyone know where I can come up with lots of pillows and/or beanbag chairs cheap?

[ related topics: Burning Man ]

Interesting omission: Microsoft doesn't have a booth or new technology at SIGGRAPH. Anyone remember Fahrenheit or whatever their image warping and rerendering technology was called? I'm not gonna take any easy potshots at "ChromeEffects" or whatever last year's VRML killer was.

[ related topics: Microsoft ]

Did the legalization of abortion lead to a lower crime rate?

Levitt said the findings support the idea that legalized abortion "provides a way for the would-be mothers of those kids who are going to lead really tough lives to avoid bringing them into the world. They're the ones who are most likely to have been unloved by their mothers, to have faced intense poverty, to have had tough lives."

[ related topics: Children and growing up Web development Sexual Culture ]

Well, SIGGRAPH is effectively over. A relatively static year for the conference itself, but the parties were fun, I met a lot of people, and ended up staying up way late Thursday night listening to Dick Dee too loud in the Wilshire ballroom. Next time around I need to pick a career with a better gender balance. It'll be good to get back and catch up on sleep, and it'll take a bit of time to catch back up on everything. While waiting for Phil this morning I was watching the news on KTLA. I'd forgotten just how vapid LA is. Although it does occur to me that rather than trying to render hairy monsters or furry animals we should just put newscasters in our movies, that way we can model their hair as a single monolithic object of plastic. Updates from Wednesday that I didn't have a chance to send: AMD's new processor (what would have been the K7) is called the "Athlon". The Wall Street Journal reports that "Athlon" is also a registered trade mark of Trespa North America Ltd. for "a material used in partitions that separate toilets in office bathrooms." Also from Wednesday's WSJ, a note that Proctor & Gamble, GM, IBM, Johnson & Johnson and Sears Roebuck are commissioning "family friendly" TV scripts to air prime time on the WB network. I suppose it should come as no surprise to anyone that these corporations are helping to create the culture that would encourage passive consumption. It's a shame that "family friendly" has become a euphemism for promoting consumerism.

[ related topics: Technology and Culture ]

Things that scares me number 4.15289*10^37: At SIGGRAPH I got a chance to play with assorted VR gear, from stereo glasses on projection systems to head mounted displays. All of these handled the stereo portion of the display correctly, but they didn't do anything for focus tracking. And I got to thinking: I'm finding that I'm getting nearsighted because I've worked on a fixed focus display for years, my monitor's always about 3 feet away from me, my glasses prescription is DS -1. But what's going to happen to all of these kids raised on Teletubbies and Sesame Street who didn't have the years that I had to strengthen their focus muscles?

[ related topics: Children and growing up ]

"An IBM Electronic Calculator speeds through thousands of intricate computations so quickly that on many complex problems it's just like having 150 EXTRA Engineers."

[ related topics: Web development ]

Yow: That big red square on the USGS map of earthquakes in the bay area denotes a 5.0 on the San Andreas fault out near Bolinas that hit while I was standing in a bookstore in San Anselmo. My friends who've been through big ones say that there's a point before which earthquakes are fun and after which they're terrifying. Thinking back to the books falling off the shelves around me, that may have been that cusp.

MAG  DATE  LOCAL-TIME   LAT    LON    DEPTH     LOCATION
y/m/d    h:m:s     deg    deg      km
5.0 99/08/17 18:06:18  37.91N 122.69W   6.9   0 mi SSW of BOLINAS

[ related topics: Dan's Life Bay Area Earthquake San Anselmo ]

Further proof that we need better laws on property confiscation, via /. a NY Times article on the FBI's backlog of confiscated computers. In non capital crimes they can apparently hold the computers for 5 years, which is more than enough time to depreciate a computer to 0, so if a prosecutor is ticked at you he can effectively take money from you. Also reveals some interesting attitudes about "innocent until proven guilty".

[ related topics: Language Interactive Drama Web development Books ]

In the Linux chest-beating department, a /. article about Linux in a 911 facility:

"Linux has done so well, that I have unplugged the reset buttons and disabled the power switch. This was done to prevent finger glitch when they have to restart the NT box our radios work from (I just wish Motorola would switch over), that sits next to the linux box."

[ related topics: Free Software Microsoft ]

Howl: Regarding the Atlas Shrugged game, Tara wrote me:

"This is the perfect anti-game concept: in line with the book, you could get points based on how many other people you convinced not to play..."

[ related topics: Objectivism Books Games ]

For some reason the DebWeb LogJam ("Covering Sexualityh in the News") had dropped below my radar for a bit, but it's back with a vengeance. Well worth reading, if that's your bent (sorry) there's too much good stuff to bother duplicating any links here.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Weblogs ]

QOTD, on being called "one of the people that 'makes things happen'":

Actually, I think it'd be a better skill to be able to make certain things not happen.

--- Randal L. Schwartz

[ related topics: Quotes ]

URL of Savage Love http://www.thestranger.com/COLUMNS/col.savage.html

[ related topics: Web development ]

Haven't (and won't) have a chance to check this prior to Burning Man, but Eric Boutilier-Brown tells me he's got a major new photo diary update.

[ related topics: Burning Man Photography Erotic ]

You know it's a hoax when someone accuses Linux users of behaving like Michigan State students.

[ related topics: Free Software Web development ]

This could be seriously bad for productivity: The O'Reilly Lego Mindstorms book.

[ related topics: Books ]

Cameron was in town last night, so we did dinner then I dragged him out to my panel at the NBMA. Nice guy, hope he decides to come out here and play in the big leagues.

[ related topics: Cameron Barrett ]

The new NETFUTURE tackles placebos, the impact of television on Bhutan, and the usual raft of interesting topics.

[ related topics: Web development Technology and Culture ]

A new Keith Knight comic.

[ related topics: Humor Web development ]

Topping the News updated while I was gone last week, as did the Up and Coming calendar of Bay Area sex events. Unfortunately I rarely find anything that looks too interesting in the latter since it mainly covers the stripping and swinging scenes, but it does incorporate the Good Vibrations schedules.

[ related topics: Good Vibrations Web development Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Yay! in Fort Lauderdale the public believes that what teachers do on their own time is their own business, despite the moralizing of school boards.

[ related topics: Children and growing up ]

QOTD:

Remember - if all you have is an axe, every problem looks like hours of fun.

--- Frossie in the Scary Devil Monastery

[ related topics: Quotes Interactive Drama ]

I've got a confession to make: I'm not a regular reader of The Onion. But my office-neighbor Tom came in and told me I should read their latest Point-Counterpoint: Career Choices. He was right.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Planet found orbiting two stars.

KibOS (animated GIF): It's an operating system, and part of a complete breakfast.

[ related topics: Humor Web development Animation ]

Frank passed along a link to this scary article. I don't want to start the gun control wars. It happens that I'm anti gun control, but I don't own a projectile weapon right now (Well, aside from my Nerf™ Ballzooka and chain fed thingie). On the other hand the rhetoric of knee jerk politicians against guns and free speech and other freedoms makes me very scared. In the wake of the shootings in LA unscrupulous politicians are trying to leverage the incident for political gain and increased spending on issues that would do nothing towards stopping the sorts of incidents that they're so callously using, and we have notes like this:

[Lee Baca, LA county Sherriff] "said he thinks it should be a civil offense to offend the "psyche of society" by making hateful comments about people from another race or religion."

[ related topics: Ziffle Religion Politics Web development ]

Also from Frank: The U.S. Postal Service is watching you closely.

[ related topics: Ziffle Web development ]

Salon has a look back at Julia Child's career. It took me a little while to appreciate her genius since I've only been exposed to her later in her career, but once I came to realize that she's not taking herself seriously and her cohorts in the kitchen are only managing to keep a straight face by dint of incredible will, I understood why she's been so popular. "When you're in your own kitchen, you can do anything you want..."

[ related topics: Web development ]

Todd'll appreciate this: Interesting /. article on why being a computer game developer sucks and why e-commerce can be more rewarding.

[ related topics: Games ]

Further evidence that we're peopled out: Average standards of living haven't increased since '52, and technology helps us stay competitive, but we aren't more productive.

[ related topics: Web development ]

QOTD, this apparently comes from some experience with non-programmers using Access, but I've seen some pretty scary examples of joins on SQL databases by programmers:

"This is excellent, really excellent. Normally you'd have to go to a bowling alley to see relational database design of this caliber."

--- Tim Wijtyszyn quoting his cow-orker Dave, in a.t-s.r

[ related topics: Quotes ]

I hope this is a good development: Compaq abandons Alpha project for 32-bit Windows 2000. They're still doing 64 bit Windows 2k, but Linux and Unix will be the primary platforms.

[ related topics: Free Software Microsoft ]

QOTD (From a link on _Robot Wisdom_):

"I still hanker after the dissident voices because I believe we are now living in a culture of silence and acquiescence."

--- John Gormley, quoted in The Irish Times

[ related topics: Jorn Barger Quotes ]

An article in Salon that touches on why GW Bush is a whining hypocrite. If any of the slimeballs running for public office had voluntarily submitted to the standard punishment for their "youthful indiscretions" or came out as pro legalization I'd consider voting for them, but as long as they're in denial and lying to us it's hard to take them seriously:

If and when the Texas governor reaches the confessional stage of his campaign crisis, someone ought to ask him why he believes a 14-year-old Houston slum kid should do time in an adult facility for the same "crime" that had no legal consequences at all for the wealthy, white and well-connected "W."

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Politics Web development ]

Via the Daily Illuminator: iMaul. A Sith Lord for the rest of us.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Larry asked who Emperor Norton was. He was a San Francisco real estate developer who tried to corner the rice market in 1854, and lost everything. Wandering the streets in rags, September 17, 1859, he proclaimed:

At the pre-emptory request of a large majority of the citizens of these United States, I Joshua Norton, formerly of Algoa Bay, Cape of Good Hope, and now for the last nine years and ten months past of San Fransisco, California, declare and proclaim myself the Emperor of These United States. - September 17, 1859

And he undertook to be a benevolent Emperor, taking a personal interest in the governance and goings on in San Francisco. He's said to have at least once single-handedly stopped one of the anti-Chinese riots. Many of his proclamations were printed in local newspapers, he printed his own currency, which was accepted by many, and his funeral procession was two miles long when he died in 1880. Proof that government exists in the hearts and minds of the governed.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Via Robot Wisdom, this SF Chronicle article on Burning Man (.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/08/24/DD11775.DTL) misses the whole point. You can't arrive as late as it recommends and not be a spectator. The weekend is a whole different energy, it's exciting, but I wouldn't call it the best time. This is totally the perspective of a reporter/spectator who just doesn't get it.

[ related topics: Jorn Barger Burning Man Sexual Culture ]

Well, I got a few e-mails about my "crush video" skepticism. Peter said Kibo had mentioned them in some of his Usenet postings, so I went to DejaNews and found the usual Kibo postings, which only made me more skeptical (although Kibo is rather entertaining in a bizarre sort of way). Then Jesse James Garrett passed along these URLs, apparently he's using a better search engine than I am, and I suppose I'm willing to admit that there are some videos and pictures of women's feet crushing bugs, slugs, small rodents, and food and GI Joe dolls.

"Vanessa's Frog Stomp. It's either a dance craze or a disease. (The best are both, like St. Vitus's.)"

--- Kibo

So you may have noticed the media furor over something called "crush videos", allegedly movies of women in high heels killing insects and small rodents by stepping on them. Since this is supposed to be an Internet phenomenon, and you can put in almost anything else related to sex into a search engine and get lots of pages that have faked keywords to draw you there. So I went to a couple of search engines and tried looking for "crush videos". Funny that the only thing I found was the news stories on the topic, huh? Seems to me that there's a media spoofer out there preying on the feeble-minded (ie: journalists and politicians).

[ related topics: Humor Erotic Sexual Culture ]

In the "I almost didn't bother to pass this on because it's so commonplace and surely none of my readers are foolish enough to still be running this software" department: Via RC3, another bug in the Microsoft Java VM allowing unprotected code to run without user intervention in Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora for Windows, IE4 and IE5.

A Microsoft security bulletin says the glitch lets anyone "create, delete or modify files on the user's computer, reformat the hard drive, copy data to or from a Web page, or take other desired action."

[ related topics: Web development Microsoft ]

A couple of neat articles in Salon today, Bill Wasik gives directions to a Silicon Valley company (I proposed that he should write a follow-up describing how to get to a north bay company. It'd be something like the opening sequence to "Get Smart".) And Mary Roach tackles scents and pheremones:

if there exists a substance that can counteract the repellent effects of cologne or aftershave, it is powerful stuff indeed. And I do not speak from personal taste alone. In a study conducted by Al Hirsch, director of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, the smell of men's cologne reduced vaginal blood flow by 1 percent.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Web development ]

A great LA Times article on the Iron Giant, talking about the abysmal attempts at publicity and the odd lack of recognition of good films by those who've been hollering about the bad ones:

The Wall Street Journal even ran an article urging readers to ignore the box-office figures and judge the film on its merits. But John McCain hasn't hailed it as a counter to the "coarsening of American culture" he's deplored; Steve Allen hasn't taken out full-page newspaper ads urging parents to see it. Charlton Heston hasn't even condemned it.